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Most of the time, my brain moves way too fast, which is why I usually write posts that are way too long, and also why I write posts like this after midnight. I’ll try to keep it short…

Me and TJ were talking about how everything we see on TV these days makes us consider it as a career. Try that sometime, it can be quite entertaining, but really…quite tough. I mean, there are so many options of things to do in life. So many options.

I was watching Sportscenter coverage of the Kobe’s 61 point game at Madison Square Garden, and the video showed Kobe walking through the halls, 15 people in tow behind him, and he comes up to director Spike Lee, and gives him a hug.

And I think to myself, “I want to be an acclaimed film director that hangs out with Kobe.”

And then I think, “better yet, I want to be Kobe!”

I mean, I wont lie, I wouldnt complain about being the best player on earth, or being a famous filmmaker, making lots of money, with big houses, nice cars, and pretty girls.

Fame. Money. Power. Oh yea, I definitely wouldn’t be complaining.

So, what do I do next?

Wikipedia.com. Type in: Spike Lee

(btw, TJ lost two battles today at the hands of Wikipedia, first he tried to tell me Pete Wentz was the lead singer of Fall Out Boy. Wrong. Then he tried to tell me that Monk was filmed in San Francisco. Wrong. Ha! Thank you Wikipedia.)

Back to the story:

In my mind I’m thinking to myself something along the lines of, “If I read the Wikipedia page about Spike Lee, I will find out how to be successful like him, and then I’ll become an acclaimed director too!”

Psh. If only.

I was soon sidetracked by the many links on his page. (damn you Wikipedia, for distracting me from becoming an acclaimed film director!) I soon happened upon the page of a Tawana Brawley. Reading along I learned that Tawana Brawley has her own Wikipedia page because she was the focus of an intense rape case during the year I was born.

The case focused on a then 15 year old african american Tawana Brawley being found in a garbage bag, having been missing for four days. She was covered in feces, claiming she has been raped by three white men, one being a police officer. As the case unfolded, it recieved huge media attention, and racial tensions were high. It was soon exposed that the girl had invented the whole story. A witness described seeing the girl climb into the garbage bag herself.

The girl has invented the whole story it seems, to avoid being beaten by her mothers boyfriend, Ralph King. King had a history of violence, including the stabbing death of his first wife. There was considerable evidence that King could and would violently attack Brawley; when Brawley had been arrested on a shoplifting charge the previous May, King attempted to beat her for the offense — at the police station.

Now, I dont know about you, but I can’t read something like that and not re-examine my priorities. Suddenly, money, fame and power became much lower on my priority list.

Writing about the case, sociologist Jonathan Markovitz concluded “it is reasonable to suggest that Brawley’s fear and the kinds of suffering that she must have gone through must have been truly staggering if they were enough to force her to resort to cutting her hair, covering herself in feces, and crawling into a garbage bag.”

While some of what the girl went through may have been self inflicted, I can’t imagine living in an environment where covering myself in feces would become a reasonable option.

I am blessed enough to have grown up in a home where both of my parents loved each other, where I never went without food, and where I never had to worry about all the things that Tawana Brawley had to worry about. I don’t understand why I was got lucky enough to be born into the Spray family. I don’t understand much of God, and I certainly dont understand why Tawana Brawley had to grow up in her family instead of mine.

What I’m saying is that I dont understand why I was blessed the way I was, and why others suffer the way they do. Why aren’t things the other way around? All I know is that they aren’t. So as much as I would like to have money, power and fame, I can’t help but feel like I owe something to the people who grew up like Tawana. Even if I dont owe anything, it would be so selfish of me to chase fame, money and power, taking advantage of all the blessings I had, all the blessings that I did nothing to earn!

…and then completely forgetting all the people who didn’t have the chances that I did.